Analysis of audio and videotapes revealed an increase from an understanding of 5 to 469 words after training with a vibrotactile device and traditional aural-oral teaching techniques in a deaf two-year-old. Compared to younger hearing children, she exhibited similar developmental patterns for rate of acquisition and stages of lexical…

The sign and oral language development of five two-year-old hearing children of deaf parents was studied and compared with the sign and oral language of their mothers. A surprising finding was that the mothers, despite their limited oral linguistic competence, communicated predominantly in the oral mode with their children. (Author)

How children acquire language is a riddle for developmental linguists and the subject of debate among them. Some linguists argue that children acquire language through a universal process regardless of their native tongues. Evidence of the innateness of language capacity has also appeared in studies of deaf children. (Author/JN)

Outlines the steps in presenting a "book talk." Argues that it can be an effective way to broaden children's awareness of literature while developing their verbal skills. (FL)

Describes the ability of two boys to speak backward and discusses private speech play behavior in relation to linguistic, cognitive, and social development. (EKN)

Provides examples of children's use of oral games and suggests that they are excellent material to establish the needed links between experience, speech, and the written word. (HOD)

Offers a five-step support technique for transferring speaking to writing and offers observations on helping children with the conventions of writing. (HTH)

Presents study designed to investigate production of certain structures in French by native-speaking French Canadian children using the Bilingual Syntax Measure. Data show no difference in production for structures studied across ages; however, significant difference was found in extent to which structures were produced correctly. (Author/BK)

Argues that show-and-tell is an important school learning activity that gives students an opportunity to practice and improve their oral language abilities. Offers a technique for the informal assessment of show-and-tell activities. (FL)

Describes use of teleprompter to assist foreign language instructor in stimulating coversation in classroom. (BK)

Revealed a statistically significant difference between alcoholic and nonalcoholic oral syntactic performance, with alcoholic subjects committing greater numbers of syntactic and semantic errors than nonalcoholics. Indicated a deficiency in the integrative and descriptive aspects of alcoholics' oral language performance. (RL)

Discusses the positive effects of storytelling in the classroom and techniques for teaching children the art of storytelling. (HTH)

Reports on a conference on the importance of oral language in language instruction and research. (RL)

Examines the relationship between proficiency in oral language and later school performance--particularly in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Subjects were 74 five and six year olds enrolled in preschool programs in Texas. (MP)

Argues that both oral and visual language acquisition may be innate human functions and calls for the examination of current reading programs in this light. (FL)